Tom Chatfield I Type Therefore I Am Essay

Without the help of technological advances, many people around the world would remain illiterate. However, because of our advances in technology, the human race has the opportunity to gain the knowledge to communicate with each other through the internet, ultimately decreasing the percentage of illiteracy. Tom Chatfield writes about this positive effect of technology in his essay “I Type, Therefore I Am.” The author illustrates that although we benefit as a whole from technology, new issues such as less face to face interactions and communications begin to surface. Chatfield questions his audience whether the opportunity to “write and type [one’s] every thought [should] be celebrated or deplored” (Chatfield). After all, an increase in the number of people becoming literate due to modern technology should be a cause for celebration. However, because we are now able to post any idea or thought that comes to mind, utilizing technology too often to communicate to the online world
For instance, Chatfield backs up his claim that people are not communicating to each other face to face as much as they have in the past by implementing passages from Clive Thompson’s article “On The Death of the Phone Call.” Thompson states that “we let typ[ing] do our talking for us” because our generation no longer depends on human interaction to communicate with one another (Thompson). Chatfield also includes actual events that have occurred in order to emphasize that online communication cannot always be taken seriously. Although emoticons were excluded in Paul Chambers threat tweet towards the “closure of an airport,” he was not punished simply because “the language and punctuation are inconsistent” for it to become a serious issue for the airport (Chatfield). Chatfield includes evidence for both sides of his argument, forcing the reader to decide the author’s ultimate